I had a good time banging some drums with my buddies Ashley and Tim Jones. Thanks to everyone who came out, especially the GCI crew becuase they all had work in the morning. I can’t wait for you guys to hear Ashley’s record. It’s berserk.

One is for the highlight reel. I tried to keep my geek down but this man is a legend. Very few people could make me revert to such a nervous fanboy.

Click here.

So sexy so sexy. Above is one of those 35″ Lakland four strings I was telling you about. I believe the official model is the “XLS”. And those are the Joe Barden bass pickups I’ve been raving about for a while too. I love this bass. Hopefully the three of us will spend some quality time together this summer. Whadaya say?

This is my friend Ashley Mendel. Some of you may recognize him from playing bass in my band. He looks a lot less dangerous without the Luchador mask. On June 28th Ashley’s band is playing at the Knit in Hollywood. I’m geeking out because I will be playing drums for him. Come out and get loose with us. It will be awesome if I can learn how to play drums in time.

http://la.knittingfactory.com/show.php?event_id=123880

If you stick around after the show we can play a game called “Help Ben carry his drums because he’s too old for this shit and should have went to college and got a real job”. It’s just like scrabble except everyone wins. Oh, and blow up Ashley’s facebook page.

Here we go again. This time I’m bringing backup……

I began to write this long diatribe about who I think will win their fights. Then I realized how much I dislike reading that kind of garbage. Especially (but not only) when the writer has a conflicting opinion with mine. In the name of keeping it positive, I’m geekin out just to go again. This will be the ultimate summer kickoff for me. I hope I make it out of Vegas alive.

Went to see Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction and The Street Sweeper Social Club last night. It was unusual and cool to be one of the “younger” people in the crowd. Even cooler to see Eric Avery on bass with Jane’s. But the coolest was seeing the place packed even though money is tight for everyone. A good concert is still hard to beat. And Tom Morello raises the coolness bar for bald-headed brown skin dudes shredding in rock bands.

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Some good friends of mine have a new record out. Check them out here: Soulive

Yesterday I pulled apart my 75′ CB400F to replace the wiring harness and the carbs. I was a bit weary about rewiring the bike but once I got started it all fell into place. This is mainly due to how awesome the replacement harness was made. I got it from a Dutch bike spares shop: http://www.cmsnl.com/. It took a while to arrive but I can thank US customs for making sure it wasn’t a bomb or some sticky bud from Amsterdam while I was waiting.

New wiring, “new” carbs, a little less grease where grease don’t belong… Now I just need to get some bolts for my gauges, wire them up and I’m out of here.

I’ve had a few questions about drum gear, a few questions about bass gear and I’m finally getting around to guitar gear. I was fortunate to have a few years playing guitar on stage and in the studio in different musical scenarios. This had a big effect on what I like in a guitar rig. I had a very narrow taste in guitar tones when I first started out. I had a Strat and a Marshall and that was it for me. Then I found myself playing in a stripped down R&B trio and felt like my sound was closer to silverware banging on plates then butter on the tongue. Fast forward a few years and I’m touring with the Roots and needing to widen my palate to cover everything. Eventually I began down the slippery slope of buying, trying and buying more gear. For the past few years I’ve got it down to one guitar that does most of the work. I have a Les Paul custom with recently installed Joe Barden Two Tone humbuckers and both pickups are coil tapped. It’s a big, heavy, dark sounding guitar with bright pickps to compliment it’s natural tone. When the pickups are coil tapped I can get a great single coil sound from either pickup. It’s pretty fresh. Another good thing about the Bardens is the very low noise in any setting. I don’t know what they’re doing over there at the Virginia factory but they do it well. For years I played with Gibson Vintage Reissue 11-52 strings but I’ve stepped it down to 10’s to ease the stress on my wrists.

I’ve had the same pedalboard setup for a while now. It starts with a Boss TU-2 tuner, an Ibanez CS9 chorus and then an Emma Transmorgrifier Compressor. This is pretty much the same front end I use in my bass rig. I really like both the chorus and compressor in just about any setting. The chorus just sounds “right” to me. I don’t know how else to explain it. And the compressor is versatile enough for anything. I bet it would work on drums and vocals too. Next up is a Fulltone Ultimate Octave. That’s the secret weapon on the solo in my song “Not Today”. After that is a Hughes and Kettner Rotosphere. I’ve tried to find a descent replacement for this pedal because it is horribly noisy but nothing comes close with it’s sound. The same thing goes for the next pedal, a Line 6 DL4, except for the noise. I wanted to replace this pedal because it doesn’t like line level signal. When I would use it in my effects loop it would cut my volume dramatically while engaged. It has to be in the front end before the amp but it sounds great and there’s nothing like it. Last on the board is a Lehle Dual A/B switch which leads to two different amps.

On stage I have two amps. A Mesa F30 for distortion and a Mesa Lonestar Special for cleans. I use a Keeley modded TS9 just before the F30 to blend overdrives to get a more mid-forward sound. The F30 then runs into an EVM12L loaded Thiele 1×12 cab. It may be a single 12″ cab but it slays a lot of 4×12″s when it comes to tone. The Lonestar runs into a Weber Blue Dog loaded open back 1×12. I compared this amp side by side with quite a few other amps and this was my favorite. One of the benefits of using small amps is that it enables me to drive the amps hard without being too loud on stage. I got into using separate amps for clean and dirty after hearing the control Mikey from Incubus had over his sounds. It’s great to have a good closed back cab for overdrive and an open back for cleans.

Add a good Côtes du Rhône and you have my current stage rig on guitar. I use a lot of different things in the studio. That where anything goes as long as it gets the results. Most of the time the Les Paul is where it starts but the rest is a free for all. Thanks to everyone for the interest and thanks for the questions.
Tchuse!